Her: My husband is expecting a job offer in North Carolina and when it's official they are going to want us down there in 2 weeks! I don't even know where to start finding a place to rent!"

I did! Good old Active Rain...now it was a bit challenging yesterday with the PEAR error and System not available error and painfully slow connections, but I would not be deterred.

Some realtors that appeared to be near the area my friend would be re-locating to had set up profiles but had not posted a single blog, I left 2 messages but didn't hear back, not surprising.

After a continued search of North Carolina Realtors, my next call was to the lovely Tish Lloyd in Wrightsville, NC. It turns out that Tish and I both lived in Warrenton, Virginia in our past, and had my family stayed in Warrenton, would have graduated from the same high school! SMALL WORLD. Unfortunately Wrightsville is quite a distance from Teachey/Wallace, NC. That's OK, because I made a great new connection!

By the way, the next time you complain about not getting paid enough on a rental, Tish told me that Realtors get paid in McDonald's gift certificates for placing a renter!

Tish suggested I contact the amazing Melissa Mckinney, of Fayetteville, NC. Melissa and I talked about Active Rain, about how sweet Margaret Rome is. She told me that Margaret had even sent her a copy of her book: Real Estate The Rome Way. We talked about the incomparable Lenn Harley and how we both hope to be like her one day! Unfortunately Teachey was also too far for Melissa to feel confident in knowing the area. Melissa took some time to do a search on her own and called me back with number for another Keller Williams office in Jacksonville.

I spoke to Julie Jones (not a rainer, but you can bet I am sending her an invite!). Teachey/Wallace is in a different county, quite far from her office too. Who knew North Carolina was so spread out! Julie took the time to call me back with a number to two Real Estate offices in Duplin County.

I called, spoke to Wanda Canady of Duplin Realty. It turns out that Wanda and her 2 rental agents handle about 300 rentals in a 100 mile radius of her office. Also not a Rainer, she will be invite number 2! Wanda even knew the two closest Christian schools to the area my friend is interested in! Her final comment was..."It will be a challenge to find them something so quickly, but if we don't have something, we will find it for them!". I loved that can do attitude.

That my friends is the power of the Rain. I bet if my friend asked anyone else that question they would have just said, sorry, I only handle Maryland. Because of Active Rain, I have resources at my fingertips. I can connect to professionals across the country at the click of a mouse and have a pretty good idea of who they are and how they do business.

My day started with a question "You do real estate, don't cha?" By mid afternoon, I made connections with two phenomenal women in Tish and Melissa and look forward to reading more about them here on Active Rain. I found two additional realtors who were wonderfully helpful and truly went above and beyond to get me the information I needed to help my friend who will be a perfect addition to Active Rain ....All this and I had fun too!

I bet when Karen is looking to buy a home in North Carolina she will call me for a referral. Will you be ready?